Secret Cinema have announced their next big event. It’s a good one! Read on for more details.

What is Secret Cinema?

Secret Cinema is a company that specialises in totally immersive cinema experiences. You spend an evening totally absorbed in surroundings typical of the film on which the night is based.

There are two types of event Secret Cinema organises. Both are highly similar but with subtle differences.

Secret Cinema: Tell No One (not this event)

The first is the kind they made their names doing – completely secret smaller events for films many would consider to be cult classics. Nobody knows the film until they show up, and from then on anything can happen.

When they tackled The Shawshank Redemption, for example, people were snarled at by an angry police officer who informed them they were all convicts. He then walked them, single-file, through a busy shopping centre to their transport to a local high-security prison. It’s all good-spirited and great fun for those with an interest in surprises and adventure. The recent Tell No One event falls into this category (and is still going on so the name of the film won’t be revealed).

Secret Cinema Presents (this event)

The second type tend to be larger in scale and the film is announced well in advance. This is the category last year’s Empire Strikes Back event falls into, along with the previous year’s Back to the Future. Both were excellently received and left people wanting more large-scale events.

The latter type is better for those unfamiliar with more obscure films who want to know that they’ll enjoy the night before they attend and pay for the tickets.

Either way, whatever they do the nights are always highly immersive experiences and well worth the money. They have carved out a massive area of the market that most people didn’t even think existed.

What’s the next event?

This next event in their calendar is Danny Boyle’s zombie survival horror 28 Days Later. It is a Secret Cinema Presents night, so the film is common knowledge. No surprises this time around!

What’s the film like?

28 Days Later revolutionised the popularity of zombie films as a genre. It was a shift in terms of the technology used. Boyle used Canon XL1 digital video cameras to allow the manoeuvrability to shoot the desolate London scenes, but they had a knock-on effect that gave the film a sort of CCTV-type feeling to it, like it was recovered footage. It starts with the lead character Jim (Cillian Murphy in his breakthrough role) waking up from a coma in a hospital with no knowledge of how he got there.

We learn what’s happening as he does, finding fellow survivors along the way and hoping to reach some kind of freedom. It captured the imagination of cinema-goers during its original release, instantly becoming a hit in both the UK and USA.

What can we expect?

It would be easy to jump to the conclusion that it is really just any excuse to do a zombie-themed event. Anyone who has experience of Secret Cinema will know that this is very unlikely.

The event will, inevitably, involve hoards of zombies. One way that the film kept us gripped is the constant use of impending terror. It was the first film to use running zombies, so expect these to be present at the event too. Better take your running shoes!

I imagine it will incorporate the military as a key element. In the film they weren’t necessarily to be trusted, and there’s a fantastic scene in a fortified mansion that could utilise the open-air quite well if that’s the path they choose to go down.

Whether or not we’ll be killing zombies or just avoiding them remains to be seen. If we are doing that, it will need to be reasonably safe or there could be some serious injuries. No head-shots people!

Clothing is always a key part of the events and advice on outfits will be sent out in advance. It’s possible that it will be one of the easiest Secret Cinema events to dress for. The film is set in the present day (or ten years ago at least) and presumably we won’t be asked to dress up as zombies. I’d imagine it will be a case of wearing anything for once rather than trying to get hold of any specific costumes. No desperate searches for tan and black scarves required this time! Perhaps a medical outfit will be required for some people.

It will be a great experience to witness a modern cult classic on a massive screen with an enthusiastic audience.